As we move into what has been described as post–Christian America, it is increasingly important for Christians to know what they believe as well as why they believe it. The apostle Peter put it this way: “Always be prepared to give an answer [apologia] to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and with respect” (1 Peter 3:15, emphasis added).

“God spoke to me through a sage advisor” As a new Christian, I was grateful to find more mature Christians who had been studying God’s word for many years. They had already learned how to “think Christianly,” and became a source of Divine guidance. They helped me understand, interpret and embody the words of Scripture as they relayed what they had learned. When a Christian says, “God spoke to me today,” they may simply mean that one of God’s children provided them with Biblical wisdom from what they understood by reading the word of God.

To be honest, I can’t remember going to a movie quite like Black Panther. The buzz among many of my friends has been feverish. Some are Marvel movie lovers, but for most of them, Black Panther was about something much more.

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

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“Hello, Pastor John! My question is regarding some of those hard verses in the book of Hebrews — specifically Hebrews 10:26–29. The writer seems to be speaking about the ability to lose salvation by engaging in ‘willful sin,’ as it has been called. My question: What is the opposite of a ‘willful sin’? Is it an accidental sin? Or something else? It seems to me that, due to the presence of the Holy Spirit’s conviction, all sin done by the believer is done willfully. Is there something I am not seeing within these verses?”

“The state of our politics reflects the state of our souls. It reflects what we’re willing to accept in the name of political victory. Opening up our narrow politics will not be easy, but it’s possible. The resources of hope make it possible.” http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/february/us-politics-trump-clinton-hope-christians-michael-wear.html?visit_source=twitter …

What is the effectiveness of apologetics ? The Holy Scriptures tell us that God has revealed himself to mankind but that humanity as a whole does not want God (Romans 1:18-20). This leads people to create crafty ways in which to avoid God. Jesus also revealed the inner depths of the human psyche in this exchange of God’s wooing and the human response to that truth in the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:3-23, Mark 4:2-20, Luke 8:4-18). In this parable, the sower (one who relays God’s truth) scatters seeds (the truth of God) and the seeds fall on four different kinds of ground (types of human dispositions).

In a society that’s quickly turning away from God, kids will be exposed to claims against Christianity at exponentially increasing rates. When they start to see their beliefs in the context of such claims, they have to know how to evaluate those competing views. Think of it this way: Just because a football team knows what to do when they have a ball at practice with no opponents around doesn’t mean they’ll know what to do when thousands of pounds of force come at them in a real game. If they don’t know what the other team will do, and how to respond, they’ll fumble…they’ll make poor plays…they’ll be pushed back. Similarly, our kids won’t be living in a Christian vacuum. Thousands of pounds of force will be coming at their beliefs. You can ignore it, but statistics show your kids’ faith will likely not stand up again after it’s been tackled by today’s opponents. Why wouldn’t you prepare them for that?

Maybe you’re leading a Bible study tomorrow. Maybe you’re just beginning to dig deeper. It’s good to know that you can always ask Ligonier. For more than forty-five years, Christians have been looking to Ligonier Ministries, the teaching fellowship of R.C. Sproul, for clear and helpful answers to biblical and theological questions. Now you can ask those questions online as they arise, confident that our team will work quickly to provide clear, concise, and trustworthy answers. When you have questions, just ask Ligonier.

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

Prolific author James Sire who was instrumental in the writing careers of Os Guinness and Francis Schaeffer passed away this month. This blog reflects some of my thoughts on his impactful life. http://douglasgroothuis.com/2018/02/17/james-sire-some-personal-reflections/ …

He spent much of it in a subdivision called Pine Tree Estates, on a lush, narrow street dotted with tropical plants and the occasional driveway basketball hoop. Mr. Cruz and his brother, Zachary, had been adopted, and were raised largely by their mother, Lynda Cruz, especially after their father, Roger P. Cruz, died suddenly in 2004 at the age of 67. Ms. Cruz died in November, and people who knew Nikolas said he had taken the loss hard.

This is the kingdom of sexual lust — a world of soft porn and free porn — and secrets contained in cleared web browsers. What you behold, boys, you become. If you steep your tea too long, it becomes bitter. Likewise, if you sit and soak in pornographic fantasies, your life will have a bitter taste. At first the flavors might taste sweet, but bitterness will always be the end result. And the bitterness will be shared someday in your interactions with girls: how you think about girls, talk to girls, treat girls, and pursue girls.

He was right. Media continues to get better and more vivid. CGI effects are becoming more moving. Movies more stunning. TV dramas more compelling. Actors more persuasive. “We’re going to have to come to some sort of understanding about how much we’re going to allow ourselves, because it’s probably going to get a lot more fun than real life.” He was speaking of TV, movies, gaming, and mass media, but even social media and the Internet, while democratizing voices, would not make our screens less addictive, and Wallace knew it.

I hold to conservative views on the Second Amendment, but I don’t hold to my views here in the way that I would something clearly revealed in Scriptures. I certainly don’t hold to those things the way that I would the fundamentals of Christian doctrine and ethics, which is why I have very close co-laborers in Christ who are proponents of gun control. They haven’t persuaded me of that, but I don’t see them as being on another “side.” We both are looking toward the same goal.

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In the spring of 1989 syndicated talk show host Larry King interviewed Shirley MacLaine on the New Age. When a Christian caller contested her view with an appeal to the New Testament, MacLaine brushed him off with the objection that the Bible has been changed and translated so many times over the last 2000 years that it’s impossible to have any confidence in its accuracy. King was quick to endorse her “facts.” “Everyone knows that,” he grunted.

Breaking up is difficult on both ends: Someone is going to be hurt, regardless. But being on the receiving end of a breakup is even worse if, instead of hearing the truth about why your relationship is ending, you’re subjected to excuses. Nothing is worse than not getting closure. Whether you saw it coming a mile away or were completely blindsided, it’s hard to move on when you feel like you don’t know the real reason things didn’t work out.

I slumped in an unpadded pew, half-listening to the morning Bible study. I wasn’t particularly interested in what the Bible teacher in this tiny Christian high school had to say. But, when the teacher commented that the New Testament Gospels always reported word-for-word what Jesus said, I perked up and lifted my hand. This statement brought up a question that had perplexed me for a few weeks.

The Lenten season is about giving up indulgences and sins, especially. This season, the Church of England is taking it a step forward and asking people to give up the indulgence of plastic consumer products, which wreak havoc on the environment.

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

Sadly, some recent polling data and elections indicate that many Americans believe that a president's personal behavior is largely irrelevant to his or her potential effectiveness as the nation's leader. Some do so because they espouse a postmodern philosophy that rejects the concept of transcendent truth and believe instead that right, wrong, truth and character are subjective. Many, however, who contend that there are ultimate standards for character and conduct, most notably evangelicals, have strongly supported Trump and have been willing to overlook his character flaws because they support his policies. This has led to extensive criticism of evangelicals as self-serving hypocrites, tarnished their reputation, and reduced their cultural influence. Ironically, two decades ago evangelicals wanted to impeach a president for his sexual transgressions and mendacity.

Today we present a pair of brief interviews Warren Cole Smith conducted with two young leaders in the pro-life movement: First, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life; and Lila Rose, founder of Live Action. http://bit.ly/2FgOwTc pic.twitter.com/oA8vBSGvPW

Black Panther has also inherited the political responsibility of leading his people after his father was assassinated. Yes, America, this is a story about the legacy of black pride and the civil rights struggle after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. That death failed to answer the questions the man’s great political activity raised, and to resolve the conflicts among blacks and among whites and between them as to what equality would demand.

Angels and demons are an important part of our Christian worldview, although many of us come from traditions that have marginalized the power and influence of angelic beings. It’s important to recognize the existence of these beings, however. Our petitions and prayers must always reflect the involvement of these unseen forces, and even our response to the problem of evil must take angelic beings into account. Tomorrow we’ll examine why God would create angelic beings in the first place.

Granted, the grounds of a sinner’s salvation in Scripture are clear: Grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone. True, the Bible never adds “church membership” as a condition of salvation. Note the qualifier “intentionally” in my thesis—it is the key pillar in my argument. I am here assuming the individual making this query is intentionally seeking to avoid church membership and church attendance while claiming to be a follower of Christ. And yes, I realize there are many situations that keep true believers out of church for periods of time, so that’s not the person I have in mind. My argument applies only to those who claim to be Christians and intentionally reject participation in any local church.

Every believer in Christ is called to give a reason for their faith. This is not an option, it is simply a part of sharing the gospel with those around us. This is why it is so important that we be involved not just in “devotional” study of the Word of God, as important as that is, but in deep, serious, systematic study as well. We must not “duck” the tough issues, but meet them head on, having faith that God has revealed to us everything that is necessary for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Our faith will grow tremendously when we discover, for ourselves, the consistency, harmony, and complete truthfulness of the Word of God. This will not happen unless we are willing to examine our faith and wrestle with the arguments of our opponents

Being a caregiver is one of the most difficult things you will ever do. It is difficult physically, emotionally and mentally. Caring for a senior loved one who may be frail or losing their cognitive abilities is heart-wrenching, and the exhaustion that comes with 24/7 care doesn’t make it any easier. If you are the caregiver of an aging loved one, here are 5 self-care habits you can practice to prevent caregiver burnout.

Even as the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations to rise, but rises of its own accord and shines over all, so you also should not wait for clapping of hands and shouts and praise to do your duty. Do good of your own accord, and you will be loved like the sun. ~Epictetus